Alternative For Prison Essays - Criminology, Penology, Criminal Law

Alternative For Prison AN ALTERNATIVE FOR PRISON America's prisons have been called graduate schools for crime. It stands to reason: Take a group of people, strip them of possessions and privacy, expose them to constant threats of violence, overcrowd their cell- block, deprive them of meaningful work, and the result is an embittered underclass more intent on getting even with society than contributing to it. Prisons take the nonviolent offender and make him live by violence. They take the nonviolent offender and make him a hardened killer. America has to wake up and realize that the current structure of our penal system is failing terribly. The government has to devise new ways to punish the guilty, and still manage to keep American citizens satisfied that our prison system is still effective. Americans pay a great deal for prisons to fail so badly. Like all big government solutions, they are expensive. In the course of my studies dealing with the criminal justice system, I have learned that the government spends approximately eighty-thousand dollars to build one cell, and $28,000 per year to keep a prisoner locked up. That's about the same as the cost of sending a student to Harvard. Because of overcrowding, it is estimated that more than ten-billion dollars in construction is needed to create sufficient space for just the current prison population. The plain truth is that the very nature of prison, no matter how humane society attempts to make it, produces an environment that is inevitably devastating to its residents. Even if their release is delayed by longer sentences, those residents inevitably return to damage the community, and we are paying top dollar to make this possible. Why should tax payers be forced to pay amounts to keep nonviolent criminals sitting in prison cells where they become bitter and more likely to repeat their offenses when they are released? Instead, why not put them to work outside prison where they could pay back the victims of their crimes? The government should initiate work programs; where the criminal is given a job and must relinquish his or her earnings to the victim of their crime until the mental and physical damages of their victims are sufficed. A court will determine how much money the criminal will have to pay for his restitution costs, and what job the criminal will have to do to pay back that restitution. The most obvious benefit of this approach is that it takes care of the victim, the forgotten person in the current system. Those who experience property crime deserve more than just the satisfaction of seeing the offender go to prison. Daniel Van Ness, president of Justice Fellowship, has said: All the legal systems which helped form western law emphasize the need for offenders to settle with victims. The offense was seen as primarily a violation against the victim. While the common welfare had been violated and the community therefore had an interest and responsibility in seeing that the wrong was addressed and the offender punished, the offense was not considered primarily a crime against the state as it is today. (76) Restitution offers the criminal a means to restore himself-to undergo a real change of character. Mere imprisonment cannot do this; nothing can destroy a man's soul more surely than living without useful work and purpose. Feodor Dostoevsky, a prisoner for ten years during czarist repression, wrote, If one wanted to crush, to annihilate a man utterly, to inflict on him the most terrible of punishments...one need only give him work on a completely useless and irrational character (77). This is exactly what goes on in the make work approach of our prisons and it is one of the contributing factors to prison violence. To quote Jack Kemp, author of Crime and Punishment in Modern America: The idea that a burglar should return stolen goods, pay for damage to the house he broke into and pay his victims for the time lost from work to appear at a trial meets with universal support from the American people. There is, of course, a reason that the concept of restitution appeals to America's sense of justice. Restitution also provides an alternative to imprisonment for nonviolent criminals, reducing the need for taxpayers to continue building prisons. (54) Working with the purpose of paying back someone that has been wronged allows a criminal to understand and deal with the real consequences of his actions. Restitution would be far less expensive than the current system. Experience shows that the cost per prisoner can be as low as ten percent of that of incarceration, depending on the degree of supervision necessary. Removing nonviolent offenders from prison

Lady Gaga Can Teach You How to Never Give Up

Lady Gaga Can Teach You How to Never Give Up Everybody fails. Even the fanciest and most successful of celebrities, historical figures, and our most idolized idols. Even Lady Gaga. She’s won 5 Grammy awards. She’s been Billboard’s Artist of the Year as well as one of Forbes’ 100 most powerful women, and one of TIME’s most influential people. She’s broken records for record sales and made absurd amounts of money on global tours. Plus, she’s universally accepted as analogous for cool.But before she was Lady Gaga, she was Stefani Germanotta, a little girl who lived in Manhattan and played the piano by the age of four. She went to NYU’s conservatory to study music at the age of 17, but dropped out two years later to try and make it as a musician. The Stefani Germanotta band played a few local gigs, and netted her a manager, but was disbanded within a year.That manager, Rob Fusari, took her on, but had a very difficult time convincing the major labels to do the same. She was to ld she didn’t have the right look, the right sound, and that her songs just weren’t hits. She even left one meeting at Sony in a rage of tears.Then, an accident of autocorrect occurred. Fusari typed her name and his phone corrected it to â€Å"Lady Gaga.† A star was born? Not so fast. The newly named Lady Gaga then got a great deal with Island Def Jam records and began work on an album, only to be dropped without explanation after three months. She hit a low point, turning to drinking and drugs for solace, trying not to give up on her dreams despite being told she wasn’t pretty enough to be a singer songwriter and simply play and sing at a piano. The only work she could get was writing songs for other artists, which did nothing to satisfy her desire to perform herself.For the next couple of years, she took to the NYC underground scene, experimenting, working with performance art, dressing like a goth stripper, drawing attention, making waves. She died her hair platinum blond after being confused with Amy Winehouse. And then, finally, another artist took notice and forced the Interscope label head to listen to one of her songs. That song was â€Å"Just Dance.† A star was born? Yep. You know the rest.At any point, Gaga could have given up. But she didn’t. She tried and tried and failed, and she changed her tactic, changed her brand. When she hit on the right one, she was ready for the results.So remember: don’t be afraid of failure. Use it to push yourself in a better, new direction. One that just might put you in the groove and get you where you need to go.

Lutz Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Lutz - Essay Example likely to stir emotional and physical reactions from the clients, a development that is likely to negatively affect the brand image (Goshgarian n.p.). Based on the observations of Lutz, it is sad to note that people are often too short sighted to discover carefully articulated phrases. In this case, the impact of public understanding of linguistic strategies behind ads is explored. Without a doubt, the alcohol industry is marred by use of weasel words in attempts to lure clients into adopting drunken behaviors. In line with Lutz observations, double speak is a common occurrence. As a global brand, Heineken is acceptable to many as a responsibly brewed alcoholic beverage with esteemed quality. The firm has partnered with many institutions in an attempt to attain publicity that would be essential in promoting its brand integrity. Further, Heineken has sponsored many athletes and public figures, all targeted towards promoting its brand image. Through reviews, it is evident that many youthful populations find themselves endeared to the public figures, a fact that drives them into imitating what the public figures do. Further, football is a widely accepted and followed sport across the globe. Specifically, the European champions’ league provides an ideal platform for various firms to seek fame. In such avenues, clients tend to endear themselves to the produc ts on offer. Reviewing Heineken marketing strategy, the firm advertizes its alcoholic brand just before and after the champions’ league matches, creating its esteemed image as a stable firm with the capacity to sponsor the league. In this advert, the starring exhibits accurate ball shooting ability. In this sense, the brand is trying to indicate that consumption of the drink improves energy and accuracy of the client. In reality, this weasel image created is far from truth. If I were a client to Heineken, realization that consumption of Heineken is likely to affect my stability, preventing me from exhibiting